


comforts of war

by WattStalf



Series: A Not-So-Blue Planet [3]
Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Canon Divergence, F/M, Kink Meme, Unhappy marriage, but not kinky, eddie is himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:37:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5961022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WattStalf/pseuds/WattStalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because, even for someone like him, the war is harsh, Eddie finds comfort with a woman. When this woman bares his child, he has his second chance at a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	comforts of war

**Author's Note:**

> So, another part of my AU where Dr. Manhattan isn't a thing. Since Eddie's most significant interaction with Jon is in Vietnam, I decided that would be where the bulk of this story took place. I discussed this idea on the kink meme where the prompt was given and this is what I said:  
> "I've wondered how things would be different between Eddie and the Vietnamese woman. Imagine if the war was so much harsher, and he was there for a lot longer.  
> I somehow doubt he would have brushed her off about her pregnancy as much as he did when he knew he was leaving the next day, or maybe he wouldn't have seen her enough to have the chance to brush her off because he was fighting. Not to mention the fact that he was already in a shitty mood on VVN before she showed up, so his temper was already posed to flare at the wrong nudge.  
> So say things are different and the war is harsh and banging her is one of his few comforts, and suddenly she's got this baby. And I will never abandon my headcanon that he wanted to raise Laurie and regrets not being a part of her life, so here's a second chance. But the war ends, and he marries the woman to give her citizenship, only to find that none of it's working.  
> He's got a wife he barely knows who can hardly speak English, and he doesn't know the first thing about being a father. He's nearly fifty, for Christ's sake, and he's got important government work to do, and he can pretend all he wants, but the little baby is never going to be Laurie."  
> So yeah, there you have it. Went with the name Anh for the woman again, like I did in my longfic, Travesty, and mention his mother being named Francis, another thing I had in Travesty.  
> The only thing you need to know about the other fics in this series are that Jon died and that Adrian goes into politics and eventually is elected president. Also is married to Laurie.

His arrangement with Anh was one purely of convenience. He wasn't a romantic, hadn't been since he was a teenager and even then, using that word was a big stretch. She was just someone to fuck because the war was shit and the alcohol only did so much to take his mind off of it.

Everyone was finding willing Vietnamese women to sleep with- and some soldiers even found unwilling women, but he was quick to let them know he wouldn't tolerate that shit- and if little Johnny, some barely legal, scrawny kid from Milwaukee was getting laid, then there was no reason why an American hero like the Comedian shouldn't be. And Anh appreciated the fact that a hero took interest in her and the two of them had a lot of fun when he wasn't busy.

But fun didn't last, particularly not at war, and contraceptives were hard to come by and he had been raised Catholic besides, and he should have seen it coming long before it happened. He didn't bother thinking about it though- maybe it the stress of war was getting even to him- and then she was showing and he knew that the baby was his, because she adored him and never gave another man the time of day, not that any of them would have had the balls to try and steal the Comedian's girl.

Eddie Blake had been a father before, but he hadn't; Sally had seen to it that Laurie was never really his, and he never tried with anyone else. He wasn't a romantic anymore, and he could barely understand her, and now she was having his baby.

The worst part of it was that he didn't really have time to deal with it. He had a war to win, and Anh was just a side project even now that she was pregnant. The conflict was in full-swing and he barely had time to see her, much less do anything about the situation. Soon enough, she was big, and he was no closer to the easy victory that he had expected when Nixon had allowed him to come to Vietnam.

Anh was a good sport about, or at least, if she had a problem with him being away, she didn't know how to express that in English. She kept herself out of harm's way and mentioned the baby sometimes, but she did not nag him once after he promised that he would take good care of them after the war.

But the war did not end and he was given a few days leave when he heard that Anh had given birth, but it wasn't the first time he had missed out on the birth of his child, so that was not his top concern. When he arrived, he found Anh, holding a small bundle of what he assumed was the baby, but it was so swaddled that he could not see its face.

“Our daughter,” said Anh, beaming at him as if this were the happiest moment of her life. And maybe it was, and maybe there was something to her joy. She handed the baby to him and he looked down at the tiny face and realized that he had another daughter.

This baby was nothing like Laurie, who had Sally's teal eyes and Eddie's thick brown hair- his new daughter looked so much like Anh that he could barely see himself in her at all. He was both overcome and disappointed, because he had a second chance at a family, daughter and all, but it was not the family that he used to want.

“What will we call her?” she asked, snapping him out of his thoughts. “I have ideas.”

“Martha,” he replied, barely giving it a thought. He might have had an aunt named Martha, and that would be his excuse, but he wasn't giving Anh the chance to give his daughter a name he couldn't pronounce.

She blinked at him, as if surprised that he had not given her a chance to share her feelings, but then smiled. “Martha,” she repeated, trying it out in her heavy accent.

“Martha Francis Blake,” he said, and his mother's name was Francis. She hated it so much that she always went by her middle name. He hadn't seen his mother in years, but using the first name she hated so much as his daughter's middle name felt almost fitting, somehow, like a joke neither she nor her mother would ever get.

~X~

He didn't get to see Martha or Anh much after that, but he made sure that they were taken care of while he was away. Eddie didn't know when he had decided completely to give this a shot, but he had. The situation was only getting worse, and he remembered the times he had spent with her as one of his few comforts. If he did not love her, that was alright; he was sure he could at least pretend to.

Martha grew so quickly that each time he saw her, it was like looking at a completely different baby. The only clue that she was his was her eyes, whose color they had not been able to determine when she was first born, but were not plainly the same gray-blue as his. Otherwise, she was the spitting image of Anh and when he got the chance to visit them, the baby was always reluctant to let him hold her, regarding him as a stranger every time. He missed her first steps and he missed her first word, but the latter wasn't in English so he likely wouldn't have been able to tell it had happened even if he had been there.

When the United States finally gave up on the war, when Eddie figured out that his efforts had meant nothing and that he was no longer the war hero that he once was, Martha was a toddler. She could speak full sentences, but her English was very weak and Eddie had an even harder time communicating with his daughter than he did with her mother. Still, Martha finally recognized him as her father and that was, he supposed, better than nothing.

There was a large part of him that considering stealing away and abandoning his pathetic family; he had no particular attachments to them, other than memories of fucking Anh and whatever blood he and Martha shared. He had spent hardly any time with them over the past couple years and Anh had nothing. She could not pursue him or fight for him to support the child and he could pretend that this whole mess had never happened.

But somehow, that part of him didn't win out and he brought the two of them back with him and married Anh once they were in New York. For better or for worse, they were his family now, because he could not bring himself to abandon one daughter when he had missed his chance with another. He knew nothing of being a father, but that was what he was now.

The papers grossly romanticized it, going on about how the Comedian had lost his heart to the beautiful and exotic Ann (no one bothered to correct the spelling error) and had kept her as a wife during the war even though they could not be wed (except they could have, he just never had had any plans to). Of course, passion had blossomed between them and from that came the sweet baby Martha, last name not giving in the papers. The heroic Comedian had no choice but to rescue them from Vietnam and bring them home to a peaceful life in the States.

It was hilarious, but he was having a harder time laughing at his own life these days. He wondered how those who knew him felt when they saw the ridiculous articles.

~X~

Having sex with Anh was not as good as he remembered. Maybe it was because she had had a child, maybe it was because it had been too long for both of them, or maybe it was because he was back in America and had the choice to be with women he could understand, women who were much more beautiful than his wife. Whatever the case, he didn't like it and she was tired enough from dealing with Martha all day that she did not mind that he stopped trying to initiate after a while.

Though he saw them more than he did when he was at war, he was still a busy man and his work still kept him from coming home a lot. Anh never knew when he began taking other lovers, and he stuck to prostitutes because he could afford it and because things were less complicated that way. The women he saw were pretty in the artificial way that really wasn't all that pretty at all, but he decided not to be picky and his wife did not suspect a thing, too stupid to really know the man she had married.

She tried to teach Martha English by watching childish TV programs with her because the little girl would have to go to school someday and her broken English would not do well there. Anh began to learn better English that way too and was always so proud of herself, always waiting for Eddie to show that he was proud of her too. Perhaps he would have been, once, but he was already used to not being able to understand his wife and daughter, already used to resenting them for making him feel left out of things.

He had always known that he did not love his wife, but each day that passed made brought more clarity to the situation and he began to realize that he hated her.

Sally Jupiter had been the only woman he had ever come close to loving, and it was his regret in not being able to raise their daughter that had lead him to accept Anh and Martha into his life, but it was not the same. His family could not replace the family that he had always wanted but had never been able to have. He had never really known Laurie and he had missed out on all of her childhood, but he loved her all the same. Often he wondered what was so wrong with him that he could not love Martha in that same way.

But she was still his daughter and Anh was still his wife, and he stuck by them even though he really did not want to. He had his escape in affairs and work, and when he came home, he did not have to feign interest for too long before Martha was put to bed and Anh gave up on him and went to sleep herself.

It was not until Nixon lost an election and the insufferable Adrian Veidt (the bastard who had done many things to piss off Eddie, first and foremost being the fact that he had married his true daughter) was brought into office and Eddie was forced into an early retirement that things really grew bad for his home. Without work, he had no excuse for how frequently he left and Anh could speak English clearly enough now to argue with him. Martha would hide in her room while the two of them fought and Eddie never bothered to deny the accusation of cheating.

The day that Anh requested a divorce was one of the happiest he had had in a while and he couldn't stifle a laugh when he signed the papers.


End file.
